Doctors using digital technology to reach out to patients: Survey

Chandigarh: Doctors are increasingly using digital technology to reach out to more patients for diagnosis and investigations in the Chandigarh region. A survey by healthcare solutions company, Indegene has highlighting the growing trend with specialists taking to a mix of channels such as video calls, apps, emails and text messages.

Dr MS Dhillon, Head of Orthopedics, PGI Chandigarh said the idea is to treat more and more patients and improve their health status. Technology-enabled channel, be it internet or mobile, helps us get information on new drugs, emerging treatment protocols. Technology helps our patients send their reports to using apps, emails etc."

Doctors at Abbott Hospital had also launched Knowledge Genie, a portal for doctors a few years ago. Knowledge Genie is a one-stop online repository for scientific education of healthcare professionals, also accessible through an android and iOS mobile app.

The survey added that doctors prefer specific time slots for information updation through various channels. While doctors in India (including Delhi, Chandigarh (45 doctors), Indore doctors) sacrifice their afternoon siesta (2:00 to 5:00 PM), morning and early noon hours are best for US doctors (11:00 AM to 2:00 PM). Apps usage amongst all channels was high amongst doctors in US and Indegene's worldwide digital HCP Survey was done on a sample size of (1600+) doctors of which 85% doctors were in the ten years plus experience bracket and 67% doctors were domain specialists.